Photo By 2nd Lt. Dillon Davis | LA BLANCA, Guatemala – La Blanca residents perform traditional songs on the marimba...... read more read more
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Over the course of the 10-day MEDRETE, the service members served patients from throughout the municipality to help improve the quality of life for the communities while building and sustaining partnerships with the government of Guatemala and its citizens.
“We provided more than 9,500 services to more than 8,400 patients,” said John Henry, 42nd Medical Group medical readiness flight chief. “We offered six types of services: dermatology, pediatrics, OB/GYN, family medicine, dental and optometry. In addition to those services, we offered pharmacy services to supply medications to treat their injuries or illnesses.”
The MEDRETE helped improve U.S. Air Force medical readiness to better support future medical contingency operations and disaster relief efforts.
“The primary mission is to provide training for or medical professionals,” said Henry. “We come down to these countries and these professionals see diseases and medical conditions that they wouldn’t normally see in the United States. It helps get them ready for deployments.”
The large scale MEDRETE provided a multitude of training experiences for all medical professionals involved.
“This is my first humanitarian mission as a medical professional,” said U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Tracy Eastman, 42nd Medical Operations Squadron family health flight chief. “I figured that we would see a lot of patients, but I had no idea how much of an impact we would have on these people’s lives. We helped patients with simple things like medications but also, to name an example, we removed a pin from someone’s arm that was broken 40 years ago. The procedure would have cost them $3,500 at a local hospital, but we were able to do it in five minutes and at no cost to them.”
These Airmen did not only provide a huge range of medical services, they did it without the help of many of their medical devices.
“It’s been challenging for the medical professionals to have to get used to using less supplies and equipment than they have at their home stations,” said Henry. “They did a great job of improvising since they were limited in what equipment they had. I was very impressed at how they quickly adapted and were able to see more patients than expected.”
Even though the mission was primarily to help train medical professionals, the local community benefitted hugely from the medical care provided.
“Our goal was to get our medical professionals here safely and keep everyone mission ready,” said Henry. “We did a great job of getting everyone more training experience and did a lot to help the local community in the process.”
Many supporting agencies and local leaders came together to help organize the MEDRETE and ensure safety and efficiency for the training exercise.
“This MEDRETE went very smooth compared to some of the previous missions I have been on,” said Henry. “The Municipality of La Blanca mayor and local community leaders played a large role in helping to make it successful and keep things running smooth throughout.”
The MEDRETE was a great learning experience as well as something the medical professionals can look back on and know they made a difference in the lives of these communities.
“It has given me the experience of understanding what we do and how it can have such a large impact on communities like this,” said Eastman. “Helping these families has a huge impact on their lives. This mission has been way more rewarding than I expected. As we closed the doors to the MEDRETE it was really sad because I wish we had more time and medicine. I just don’t want to stop helping once I started.”
| Date Taken: | 06.04.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 06.04.2016 21:10 |
| Story ID: | 200001 |
| Location: | LA BLANCA, GT |
| Web Views: | 163 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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